Simplifying the Asset Submit

February 9, 2009

Currently there are several steps and clicks to submit an asset, but we have received many requests to simplify the process so that a user will be able to submit an asset with a couple of clicks. While we’re tossing around a few different ideas, one that has consistently come up is using templates.

Tentatively, the user would select something at the beginning of the Submit Wizard that would populate selections for Community, Asset Type, Categorizations, etc. This would save users time since they would not have to go through and do all of those selections every single time. There would also be a way to create these templates somewhere in the product.

Another idea is to have suggestions in the combo boxes for Community, Asset Type, Etc. Here we would figure out which selections someone uses the most and move them to the top of list so that users do not have to scroll through the entire list to find his or her selection.

What are your thoughts about these ideas? Would either save you time and simplify submitting assets? Or is it just putting a bandage on the problem? Please answer the poll below or leave thoughts in the comments.

Re: “If we have an attribute that has states such as development, testing, production – we would want that to be a pull down selection not a free field.”

You can do this today. When creating the attribute, create a text attribute and add predefined values. In the submit wizard, the attribute will be displayed as a drop down menu instead of a text field.